Memories
“What happened to Rumlow?” Bucky shakes his head, tries to take Y/N’s hand. But she darts away from him. “Tell me Barnes!”
He flinches, falls to his knees. “Please don’t do this, baby.” His voice is barely a whisper. “Please.”
But Y/N isn’t willing to hear it. She turns away and paces back and forth over the hardwood floors. He lets her do it, figures its best to just let her get her anxiety out. But then she stops and turns to examine him on the floor. “Is he dead?”
“What? No, I-,”
“He hasn’t come home.” Her voice breaks on the last word. “I love him and he hasn’t come home and it’s your fault.” She steps closer, anger radiating off of her. “You hurt him didn’t you? All so you could have me to yourself!”
Bucky opens his mouth to contradict her when she grabs his hair and yanks hard. “I hate you. You took away what I love most. You’re selfish and conniving and I think you deserve punishment.”
She drags him along the floor like he weighs nothing and when he looks up it’s no longer Y/N gripping his hair but his mother. He’s suddenly a child again. “You ruined my fucking life.” She lifts her hand as Bucky raises his hands in front of his face.
The hit never comes. He’s holding something very tightly in his hands as a soft voice whispers his name. “Bucky?”
He unclenches his eyes and looks up to meet Y/N’s concerned gaze. The light from the fairy lights along the bed’s headboard give her a soft glow. “Bucky?” He has a bruising grip on her wrists as she sits next to him in bed. The sheets pool around her pajama clad body. “Are you okay?” With a deep sigh he releases her wrists but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t quite trust his voice. Y/N lifts one hand and carefully pushes her fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what has you so spooked but it’s okay. We’re safe here.”
“C’mere,” he whispers as he pulls her down against his chest. She lies stiffly against him for a moment before she relaxes slightly, muscles uncoiling. Of course, of course, this would happen now. He’d finally convinced Y/N to spend a night in their apartment, sleep a night surrounded by their things, her paintings and books, her clothes and Bucky’s mixed together in the closet. Boxing trophies and plaques hang from the walls and sit on high shelves. In Bucky’s bedside table lies piles of handwritten poems and stories and some art made just for him. Under all that he has letters of his own. Letters he’s been writing since Y/N started writing to him, sealed and never given.
So of course he would have a nightmare while they slept in the same bed. In their bed. The bed they had went to Ikea to purchase together. The bed that they stole Steve’s truck to be able to haul home. The bed they put together together.
The bed they made love in and fucked in and slept in. The bed Y/N stayed up doing her homework in the winter while she pressed her freezing feet into Bucky’s sore muscles. The bed they lied naked in in the summer with the windows open when the heat became unbearable.
The whole apartment is filled with things that are just…them. Everything seemed to have so many memories attached to them. It hurt that only Bucky remembered how important it all is. He’s also hoping it’ll jog her memory.
Bucky squeezes her tighter as she whispers, “Wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
“Always no,” she murmurs quietly.
He sighs, “Not always.” She struggles away from him and sits upright as Bucky follows suit. “Y/N-,”
“This was a mistake.” Y/N shakes her head. “I think we’re a bad influence on each other.” But even as she says it she reaches out to take his hand. “You won’t tell me about certain things because you don’t want to drive me away and I think that’s unfair. I think I deserve to know who Rumlow is. I think I deserve to know what happened after he ran us off the road. It’s not like he did that and then just let us go.”
She swallows hard and then continues, “Sam told me a story the other night while you were at physical therapy. He told me about how he was mean to me when we were kids. So what happened?”
“He wasn’t always mean to you. He grew out of it, or I guess he didn’t. I guess he was just trying to get you, you know? Tried to take you away from me, everyone always has. I’ve never been good enough for you and everyone’s always known it but you.”
He looks up at her through his lashes, tears threatening to fall. “I’m sorry I’m trying to hold onto you so hard. But I was, I am, a big part of your life, whether people like it or not. And that’s got to help. It has to. I-I-I can’t mean nothing. Everything we’ve been through can’t mean nothing.”
For a moment she doesn’t say anything but then she dives forward and throws her arms around his neck. “Will you go on a date with me?” She asks. “Maybe we can-,” Y/N pulls back to meet his eyes and knows ‘start over’ isn’t the best thing to say. “Maybe I can let you tell me about the good times. All I ever do is ask about the bad. Sam says you were good to me. Always.”
Bucky pulls her back to his chest. “I tried to be Y/N. I tried to be the best that I could be for you.”
She puts her hand on his jaw and leans her forehead against his. They both close their eyes. “I believe you.”
“Okay.”
“What did we do for our first date?”
He smiles but keeps his eyes closed, “I was so nervous that we just did the usual. Dinner and a movie. And it was a disaster. I spilled food on you, had a fight with some guy in the parking lot, got you home late, hit you with a door I was trying to open for you.” He smiles wider, “And you thought it was all so cute. Told me so when I started to really get anxious and stutter.”
She giggles and pulls her face away from his so they can look into each other’s eyes. “Okay the second date then?”
Bucky stares at her for a moment as he leans his head into her hand. It’s quiet for so long that she thinks he might not answer. But then he meets her eyes again and takes a deep breath. “I said I would tell you about the good times and so I will. Because this was good. We went hiking and we got lost, only a little lost. But you said, ‘We know this forest, Buck. We’ve been coming up here since forever so let’s just stay.’ And I said okay and later that night I made love to you for the first time.”
A rush of heat comes into her cheeks then. “Oh…so early? How old were we?”
“Sixteen, I think, almost seventeen. But I’ve always been sure about you, doll. And in that moment you were sure about me.”
“Did I regret it? Later?”
He stiffens, not expecting that question. Her head is tilted to the side curiously and Bucky knows she doesn’t mean anything by it. “No,” he says quietly. “I don’t think you did. At least you never told me if you did.” He pauses for a moment, “Maybe that’s a question for Wanda or Natasha.”
Something stirs in her at the mention of the pair, who had stopped hanging around Sam’s lately. “Something-,”
“Something happened between Natasha and I. Yes.” Bucky reaches up and presses his hand over hers that still rests against his face. “I told you this already.”
She bites her lip. “I know. And I said I wasn’t upset about it but you never said what happened. I just assumed and-,”
He shakes his head and pulls her hand away from his face. “We had sex. It wasn’t a relationship, it was just sex. It happened while you were with Rumlow.”
“Because you kissed me and ran away?”
There’s a familiar tightness in his chest, because it feels like they’re going to fight. “Well, it didn’t happen exactly like that.”
When he doesn’t say anything more, Y/N pats his hand and says, “I’m sorry I got so upset the first time you tried to tell me. I want you to tell me now.” He stays silent and she pulls her hand away from his. “Bucky I need to patch together events in my head.”
“Then let me put together some of the good ones.”
His heart pounds harder as she pulls away from him entirely and says, “I need you to tell me what happened to Rumlow.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I can’t. Okay? I can’t. He’s gone. Why does it matter?”
She shoots up out of bed, “It matters because I lost my memory, Barnes!” Her voice trembles and he flinches away from the harsh use of his last name, “I lost my memories! I don’t know who I am, I don’t know who you are! I can’t remember my father! I can’t remember my best friend! I can’t-can’t remember you.” Y/N’s shoulders slump as she buries her face in her hands, a sob ripping free from her throat. “I want to remember you. It’s always there at the edges of my memory and I…just…can’t.”
Y/N takes a shaky breath and then whispers, “And I’m so terrified I’ll lose you because of it. I'm so, so scared."